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While sipping tea recently with a friend, I was impressed by her sugar dispenser, a little glass bauble which puts out exactly one teaspoon of sugar each time you invert it. I sheepishly admitted that I don't get out much, and I might even have uttered the word "newfangled." Then she told me the piece was actually old. Oops. 

So I shouldn't have been surprised that the tea-focused segment that I caught on TV yesterday was actually a month old. Pop-culture medicine man Dr. Oz was spouting age-old wisdom anyhow: his "Teas to Fight Disease" are nothing new, but perhaps they've reached a new audience in recent months. Of course I'm thrilled by the possibility that Oz's Oprah-fueled fame is providing well-brewed advice to reduce the incidence of diabetes, Alzheimer's, and various cancers with black, green, and white teas, respectively. But I'd like to highlight an aspect of his article which was not at all its focus.  

When we talk about tea as a healthful beverage, we often focus on antioxidants, the benefits of caffeine intake (or, paradoxically, the benefits of reduced caffeine content when compared with coffee), or the beverage's super-soothing effects. But tea was flavored water before flavored water was hip - that is, before you could bottle flavored water and charge people for it. One of the greatest health benefits for tea drinkers is that they're upping their water intake without consuming extra sugar or calories - of course, as long as they're not drowning their tea in cream and sugar. Don't get me wrong: I love cream (or milk) and sugar in my tea, but it's not as necessary as I think it is. And so my favorite feature of the Dr. Oz feature was his little "Flavor Meter" for each tea, showing which teas were sweetest and which were strongest. His list was painfully short, excluding red teas and herbals blends, but maybe I'll create my own someday. For now, I'll be satisfying my sweet tooth with healthy cups of Darjeeling, matcha, and Silver Needle teas.

What are some of your favorite sweet-without-sugar teas? (And when you do need some sweetener, doesn't that old-timey glass dispenser sound positively tea-lightful?)

 When it comes to relaxation, there is only one thing better than settling down with a hot cup of green tea to calm th nerves... making yourself a green tea facial to relax and rejuvenate your skin.   

Green tea is full of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties to help reduce stress lines and wrinkles on the face, making skin more taught and youthful looking.  If this isn't enough to convince you to slather some green tea on your face immediately, green tea facials have also been proven to help reduce the risk of sun cancer in animal tests!  Are you slicing the cucumbers for your eyes yet?   

If you're looking for a great green tea mask, you can either buy one at the store or attempt to make one yourself!  A DIY project is a fun idea for a Friday or Saturday night in with a book, so here's a recipe to get you started! 

To make the mask: 

• 1 teaspoon of Moroccan Mint green tea, steeped lightly and strained
• 1/2 ripe avocado
• 2 tablespoons ground green tea

A couple of days ago I had small accident.

We'll just say that I was perhaps a little too tired to be slicing an apple and in addition to a couple of ounces of beautiful, crisp, sweet gala apple slices, I wound up with a beautifully sliced thumb as well. It was almost like a surprise holiday bonus. Almost.

Anyway, since I use my thumbs quite a bit as a primate, writer, student, and assistant office manager, my first reaction after suturing myself up (thank you, Girl Scouts) was to scour the Internet for information on how I could help my injury heal as quickly as possible. 

And lo and behold! Green tea evidently reactivates dying skin cells (source). Because compounds found in green tea help keep skin cells alive, green tea may help to minimize or prevent scarring. That is good news for me, because the length of the tip of one's thumb is an odd place to have a scar.

I also found that chamomile tea, when poured into a bath, may reduce inflammation and thus help increase the speed of healing (source).

Armed with my new knowledge, I soaked in a chamomile bath and prepared a pot of green tea, drinking one cup and soaking several cotton balls in what was left over. I have no similar injury with which to compare the results, but the wound healed quickly and cleanly. Of course I would have gone to a doctor at the first sign of infection or had I suspected for a moment that I needed stitches or medical attention, but it was a relief to be able to use a low-cost herbal remedy in this instance!

How is it that you enjoy your night time tea? Do you enjoy a cup of herbal in the quiet after the kids go to bed? Do you sip a cup during the nightly news? I take mine out to the front porch and sip my tea while I drink in the night. Listening to the night sounds of suburbia, Killdeers winging through the dark... Sometimes watching a bat fly in and out of the streetlight catchng insects.

Other times I sit quietly with prayer beads in hand and ask the Universe to help plot my course to contentment, pray for the end of suffering and war... or pray for things closer to home and my heart... or I simply give thanks for the blessings I have.

These are prayer beads I made for a friend fighting breat cancer.

Do you have a night time ritual invovling tea?

Brrr! It's getting cold here in NJ, and I have been retreating to my fall favorites to keep warm: fires, blankets, mulled cider, and hot toddies! I first experienced a hot toddy as a child when I was sick with a sore throat or when I came in freezing from playing out in the snow. My mom presented me with this, at the time, extremely potent concoction that was overwhelming to sip but definitely took the cold edge off. Since then, I've actually come to enjoy this hot tea recipe in the fall and winter because it warms you from the inside out, and so I have adapted my own versions to my particular tastes. 

The classic hot toddy is made with black tea (because it mixes well with lemon and honey), but green tea does too, and I think you could make it delicious however you want according to whatever teas you prefer. The possibilities are infinite, but here is a simple standard recipe:

1oz (or more if you like!) of brandy, whiskey, or rum

1 tablespoon honey (sometimes I like to use agave nectar instead)

1/4 lemon (add more if you accidently made it too strong)

Golden Monkey Paw black tea

Voila! Curl up next to a fire, keep sipping, and keep toasty.